


My Soul To Take

by Daybreak



Category: Gone With the Wind
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, minor character death (off screen)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:12:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daybreak/pseuds/Daybreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wanted to hold on to her child as fiercely as Captain Butler wanted to hold on to Bonnie. But one of the very first things parents had to learn from the moment a child was conceived—was when to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Soul To Take

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GMTH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMTH/gifts).



 

* * *

 

"Captain Butler," she said gently.

"No," he said. He sounded resolute and every inch the officer he must have been. "She's not going," he said.

"But . . ." She was at a loss what to say. She instead settled for stroking his wild hair. She been here since morning and it was clear that he was exhausted. As was she. And she hadn't the strength to argue with him.

"What do you plan to do?" Her voice was quiet lest she upset him further. He left her then and went to the child's body on the bed.

"I'm going to stay with her until she wakes up," he said, kneeling by Bonnie's side.

Melanie closed her eyes. It was as bad as Mammy had said and nothing had changed in her hours here. Captain Butler resumed his vigil by Bonnie's bedside. Melanie was tired and sat down in a chair in a corner to watch him. They were like angels over there. Bonnie the innocent cherub and her father an angel cast out in disgrace. Yet God would never punish a man who loved a child like this. The thought gave her an idea. She spied a nearby Bible on Bonnie's nightstand.

"May I read to you, Captain Butler?" She didn't think he'd answer but he nodded and she started reading just as she had the night Mr. Kennedy had died. She opened to the Psalms and proceeded to read from the first one. She had no idea how long it had been when she realized that it had grown dark. She got up and lit the candles and saw that the distraught father had been dozing, still on his knees by the bed. She wondered what dreams he had had of himself and Bonnie. She began to read again.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . ." He awoke at the sound of her voice and his gaze latched on to her. He ran to her again, kneeling with his arms around her, his head on her lap.

"No, I can't do it! She'll be afraid, Miss Melly. Just like Beau would."

"No, she won't." Melanie was tired but firm. They had been through this in the morning. Neither one of their children had ever been very shy or fearful and she wouldn't hear of it now not even to soothe him. "She's brave. They both are. You have to let her go, Captain Butler." He simply clung to her and sobbed.

"No, no, I've lost them all. The baby, Scarlett, Bonnie . . ."

Melanie placed her hand on his shoulders, pushing him slightly away in surprise. "You haven't lost Scarlett," she said.

He looked up at her with haunted eyes. Then he shook his head. And mumbled something she couldn't hear clearly. It sounded as if it ended on 'wouldn't understand.'

Melanie knit her brows in dismay. She didn't know Captain Butler well, only what her instincts told her about him, but she knew Scarlett. And there were two people she had always been absolutely sure of. Ashley and Scarlett.

"Scarlett loves you very much," she said with conviction. "She's just . . . young," she said as if she and the other woman weren't the same age. "The war changed her. It changed all of us. But she loves you and Bonnie was her favorite child. Why can't you go to her?"

"The things she said." His voice was dark with hurt. Anger. He shook his head. "No."

"Do you have patience, Captain Butler?" He shook his head. She refrained from smiling. He had waited years to marry Scarlett and it was obvious he had loved her from the start. It was only grief that made him doubt his wife now.

"If you have patience Scarlett will come back to you," she told him. She shivered after speaking, the dull cramps she'd been feeling the last hour tightening to sharpness before fading. She couldn't let Captain Butler know. He needed her. He was just a like little boy, like her Beau. He needed a mother.

He began to cry again and she just stroked his hair again until she realized he was asleep. She closed her eyes too with this wild man wrapped around her waist, marveling that she didn't mind being there for him like this. She wasn't afraid of him. She saw that his great heart had been broken. Bonnie had been such a wonderful, spirited child. She had been so much like Scarlett and Captain Butler. But they would get back together. It's what married people did. And there would be other children. They were two of the bravest people she knew.

The throbbing in her abdomen grew deeper, waking her out of sleep to where she found Captain Butler had moved back to the bed where he was brushing Bonnie's glossy dark hair.

"And if I die before you wake," he said in a low voice, kissing the dead child's forehead. "I pray the lord my soul to take." A child's prayer. Melanie's heart went out to him but she felt she had to try again to reach him, to make him see reality.

"Captain Butler," she asked gently. "Are you ready?"

"I never was a religious man," he said in that same low voice as if he hadn't heard her. "Do you think . . . God forgives the scalawags and scoundrels?"

"No," Melanie said. "He doesn't." The tired man hung his head lower at her words. "But that's not who you are," she continued.

"You are strong and brave." She stepped toward the bed where a smell emanated from the body, faint but present. She swallowed. "Bonnie needs you to love her in death as you did in life."

"She really is dead, isn't she?" He looked up at her.

Melanie let the pause stretch out. She remembered the agony of Beau's birth which had only been eclipsed by her terror of losing the baby in the inferno that had been Atlanta. She felt fingers of that same panic now even as the twinges deep in her belly ebbed and faded. The bleeding would start soon, she realized, having feared it the past four months. She bit her lip, wanting to hold on to her child as fiercely as Captain Butler wanted to hold on to Bonnie. But one of the very first things parents had to learn from the moment a child was conceived—was when to let go.

"Yes," Melanie whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks. She'd loved Bonne so much herself. It wasn't fair. They had lost so much. Why couldn't they have the children?

"Miss Melly," He stood up and she saw shame on his face. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've been selfish."

The cramps intensified and Melanie reached for the bed to steady herself. Rhett saw her sway and swept her up to place her on the nearest settee.

"I'll get Mammy," he offered, concern in his voice.

"No, Captain Butler. Not yet. Tell me about Bonnie. What did you love most about her?"

She wasn't ready to give her baby up just yet. It was still inside, still hers. Captain Butler had had five wonderful years. She would have the next few minutes to hope and to dream. She closed her eyes as the pain faded and listened to him talk about his daughter.

"She was like Scarlett." There a was trace of a smile in his voice. "Fierce and beautiful and independent. I was going to make sure nothing stopped her from doing whatever she wanted. Nothing."

Melanie smiled. Every father ought to love a child so.

"She was also innocent," he continued. "She knew nothing about war or want. I was going to make sure she would never know that."

"Of course you were," Melanie said.

"She was like a rebirth of this land. Oh, I don't care for it as you do, Miss Melly. But Bonnie was like . . . healing," he finished.

"We have much to still heal from. This is very wise of you. Children are life renewing itself." She repeated the words that she had said when Scarlett had lost her last baby and Captain Butler had first mourned as he was now.

"Promise me something, Captain Butler," she asked.

"Anything, Miss Melly."

"That you do something for the South. You show a great scorn for it but I know deep down inside it's a part of you."

He bowed his head at her words and she continued.

"In Bonnie's memory, for all the children of the south. You do something for them. So they can have their pride."

Rhett nodded. "Of course, Miss Melly," he whispered, kissing her hands. "I will try."

There was a pause. The cramps were starting in earnest now. She hated to rush him but the child's body was starting to decay and Melanie herself had been there for a long time. Captain Butler looked calmer now, his storm perhaps having past.

He looked at her expectantly again like a child. Like Beau looked at her, like he was a child and she had all of the answers.

"What color do you think Bonnie should be laid to rest in?" she asked him. "So that no one ever forgets how beautiful she was?"

It was a test. If he cried again, she would stay as long as he wanted until the inevitable pain overtook her. But she wouldn't leave him if he still needed her. He had stood by them on one of the best and worst nights of her life and she would stand by him now.

Captain Butler released her hands and stood up, looking over at his beloved child. And he smiled.

"The blue velvet. Wasn't she always her finest in blue?" His voice was unsteady but he looked over to Melanie and smiled and she felt her heart break again at such pure love on the face of a man everyone thought was jaded and crude. Early that morning he would have thrown any blue garments into the fire along with anything that reminded him of Bonnie and her riding. He had finally turned a corner during the night.

Melanie smiled. She then rose and walked to where he had knelt again by his child's side. She put her hand on his shoulder.

"She was finer than any little girl I ever knew. I'll go tell Mammy to prepare everything."

Captain Butler just nodded and Melanie went to the door even as the cramps sharpened tighter than ever and she knew it would be soon.

Finer than the bonniest, bonnie blue flag, she thought, opening the door.


End file.
